Progate Expands to Indonesia, Offering Online Service for Programming Lesson
The second edutech to launch business in the Indonesian market by the first semester of 2020
On a mission to improve digital skills, Progate officially launch its online platform of programming lesson in Indonesia. Was founded in Japan in 2014, they offer premium learning channel for subscription. The material includes various topics, such as HTML & CSS, Javascript, SQL, React, NodeJS and many more that keeps updated.
Progate Indonesia's Country Manager, Norman Ganto told DailySocial, the service intends to solve the digital talent gap in Indonesia, in which a few years ahead projected to require 9 million digital talents.
"We're here to collaborate with various communities, institutions, companies, and provide alternatives for Indonesians to be able to learn coding with excitement independently and at very affordable prices, especially at times like this (appeals at home due to a pandemic)."
Progate has two types of packages, the basic and the plus package. The basic package is available in the free version, users can complete 1 lesson from each programming language, in 1 lesson there are a lot of theoretical and exercise material. When users get excited and to proceed to the next lesson, they can upgrade to the subscription plan. Currently, the platform is available with the Indonesian language option.
"A pleasant experience is the main focus of designing and developing Progate. One of the unique selling propositions is that the user does not have to set up or install anything to be able to start practicing the theory of coding that he just learned at Progate," Norman said.
The edutech sector seems to have a good future in Indonesia, it was seen from investor's optimism to fund business in the vertical. Last year, the centaur startup, Ruangguru, successfully secured a series C funding worth 1.2 trillion Rupiah. Other startups namely Zenius and HarukaEdu also managed to obtain follow-on funding.
Market openness to digital learning platforms is also the reason for some steady players expanding into Indonesia. In addition to Progate, there is also ELSA Speak launched earlier this year, an application developed by the founder of Silicon Valley to help students maximize their English speaking abilities.
Strategic partnership
In order to accelerate business growth and introduce the service to users. Progate has developed strategic partnerships. Among those are the digital talent recruitment platforms, Geekhunter and Glints. They also collaborated with Kemkominfo through the Digital Talent Scholarship program.
"In the Kominfo program, we've created a special curriculum with the more compact and comprehensive schedule. Therefore, participants can understand the basics of programming in HTML, CSS, and Javascript within 8 weeks," Norman added.
In terms of operational, Progate has recruited full-time local team. Globally, they've acquired 1.3 million users. In addition to Indonesia and Japan, Progate also available in India.
Not only relying on high-quality material, but Progate also ensures the learning process to be thoughtful and comfortable for users with kinds of illustrations and animation to all users come from various classes and ages.
–Original article is in Indonesian, translated by Kristin Siagian